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It was definitely progress.
Chapter 4
Ash
As I watched Aiden leave the shop, a part of me wanted to run after him. Not to tell him anything in particular. No, I just wanted to feel some more of that warmth that always filtered through me when he was around. I let out a sigh as I went to the back room to clean the cookie sheet. I was just so damned tired. So tired of feeling alone and on the verge of a nervous breakdown about what I was doing. I’d fantasized about leaving Billy for months and months, but actually going behind his back to do something about it made me feel like vomiting.
Over the past several days I’d managed to slip into this false reality of having a job I enjoyed going to and a little cash in my pocket. But the minute I’d seen Billy’s text asking me where I was this morning, I’d panicked.
Billy: Where the hell are you? I think I left some papers at the apartment and need you to fax them to me.
Ashton: I left early to take a long walk in the park. I’m not back yet.
Billy: Get back there and find them.
My first instinct had been to yank the apron off and bolt for the door to take care of it. But then that same voice that had urged me to ask Emily about her Help Wanted sign the day I’d come back to the shop looking for my journal had kicked in. I’d known Emily would probably let me go if I told her it was an emergency, but it hadn’t mattered.
I’d needed this.
I’d needed to not drop everything to do Billy’s bidding. And yeah, if he’d been around I sure as shit wouldn’t have defied him, but he wasn’t here. I had three weeks left to experience freedom before he returned. I’d already done the math and realized the money I was going to make both in salary and tips wouldn’t be enough to get me what I needed to leave Billy for good, but it was a decent start. If I was careful, I could add to it from my allowance over the coming months. I’d been crushed after I’d realized I wouldn’t be able to leave before Billy got back, but I’d clung to the fact that I still had twenty-one days to be the Ash I’d been before everything had gone to hell with Billy.
With that thought in mind, I’d punched out my response to Billy.
Okay.
Billy had sent a fax number, but I’d ignored it and waited fifteen minutes before sending my next text, steeling myself for what would happen the second Billy read it.
Ashton: I’m home. I don’t see them anywhere. I’ve looked all over.
Billy: They have to be there. Go look again.
I’d waited another ten minutes before I’d sent my next text.
Ashton: I’m sorry, Billy. I’ve looked everywhere twice. I can’t find them.
He’d been positively livid, but luckily, he hadn’t called me. He’d sworn at me repeatedly via text before finally saying he’d get a new copy. He’d ended the text with a few more comments that would have stung a couple years ago but were now just par for the course for me.
It had been my second act of defiance, and it had made me feel empowered for all of five seconds before the doubt had crept in and I’d fought the urge to run home, see if the papers really were there, and then call up Billy to tell him I’d found them. I’d hated— fucking hated— the sudden craving to hear Billy call me up and thank me for finding them or to get a text telling me how grateful he was. I’d imagined him including the cute little smiley face emoji that was blowing heart-shaped kisses— the one he used to send me every time he’d texted me that he loved me.
Between my fear that Billy would somehow figure out I’d lied to him and come storming into the coffee shop, despite the fact that he was nowhere near New York, and my self-directed anger for even considering leaving the shop to find his precious papers, I’d been in a shitty mood and had somehow completely missed Aiden’s arrival.
I honestly didn’t know what to make of the man. It had taken me longer than it should have to figure out he was flirting with me, but I didn’t know what to think of it. I’d tried a few times to shut down the conversation by treating him like any other customer, but god, he really did make it difficult.
Because it seemed like he was doing more than just flirting.
Yet he’d never once even asked me out.
I couldn’t make sense of what he wanted from me. Of course, I really didn’t have a good frame of reference to go by, either, since Billy had been my first and only boyfriend. Growing up in a small town in Texas hadn’t afforded me any guys to test out my theory that I was gay when I’d been a teenager and had started to realize girls just didn’t do it for me. So it hadn’t been until I’d left for college that I’d found my first opportunity, but I’d gotten sick before I could do anything about it. Now here I was being noticed by someone, and I realized how naïve I still was in many ways.
